Information on Downloading and Installing Windows 7 Beta — As of today, I am running the Windows 7 Beta on several different PCs including my laptop, my work PC, and my PC at home, which I upgraded recently to Windows 7 from Windows Vista SP1. (I'll be outlining the PCs I'm using to test Windows 7 shortly.)

Windows 7 Is Less of a Resource-hog Than Vista — Good news: the next version of Microsoft's Windows OS appears to be less of a resource hog than Windows Vista. — Microsoft announced Wednesday that a beta version of Windows 7 will be available for the general public to download and try out on Friday.

Windows 7 beta arrives on Connect, MSDN, and TechNet — Windows 7 beta is now available on Microsoft Connect, MSDN, and on TechNet. At the same time, Microsoft has given Windows Server 2008 R2 beta to its MSDN and TechNet subscribers as well. I'm not currently in the Windows Server 2008 R2 beta program …

GiiNii's Movit Mini WiFi Android tablet hands-on — We just spent some quality time playing with GiiNii's Movit Mini WiFi Android tablet, which might be one of the best things we've seen at CES so far — think of it as the Android version of the iPod touch and you'll get why we're so stoked.

Refocusing on our mission — It pains me to post this, and we have striven to avoid this over the past few months, but it is unavoidable. We are streamlining our operations this month, cutting staff and contractors by roughly 50% (from every team) and laying out broad targets for the coming year.

Google's Street View Takes A Byte Out Of Crime — Google Street View may get a bad rap from some overzealous privacy watchdogs and conspiracy theorists, but it just helped police save a young girl who had been kidnapped over the weekend. — In the case, which involved a woman …

Enter The Dragon: AMD Phenom II X4 940 — AMD has been fighting an uphill battle on two fronts for the last few years. For a time, fierce competition from NVIDIA, coupled with some of their own problems executing, put the ATI graphics division in a deep hole.

Corkd Gets Hackd — If you try to visit the URL for wine review website Corkd, you'll automatically get rerouted to porn site Adult Friend Finder (obviously NSFW). We're not sure how long this has been the case, but we're not the only ones noticing. — What's weird about the redirect …

Is Google Developing a Router? — There's an intriguing rumor floating about. SDTimes.com is reporting that according to multiple sources, “including one at Cisco,” Google is working on developing its own router. When I contacted Google, the answer was the now-standard …

Hands-on with the T-Mobile Shadow @ CES Las Vegas 2009! — It's been a long time coming, this new T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) Shadow II. Actually, the T-Mobile Shadow successor will be known as the... wait for it... T-Mobile Shadow! Sure, a name like “Shadow II” might be a little obvious …

Microsoft-Funded Yahoo Run? Well, Except Without Microsoft... How can BoomTown put it plainly? — The alleged deal being cooked up by a group of Silicon Valley investors to take a run at Yahoo using money raised from Microsoft, is little more than what we used to call a “trial balloon” when I worked at the Washington Post.

Japan may promote lower mobile phone fees — TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's government will seek to introduce new guidelines on mobile phone connection fees as early as 2010, which may lower rates for consumers, the Asahi newspaper reported on Thursday. — Current law does not specify …

Students, law prof want RIAA trial live and online — Back in October, we covered the case of Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston graduate student accused by the RIAA of sharing copyrighted music as “sublimeguy14” on KaZaA. Tenenbaum did not go quietly into that dark night; instead, he offered the RIAA a settlement of $500.